What other natural explanation, besides denitrifying bacteria, would explain the sudden, precipitous drop of my nitrate levels, in a new, virtually-plantless tank. If there isn't any other likely explanation, then isn't the only reasonable conclusion that the cause of the reduction is likely the denitrifying bacteria? And if yes, then isn't the media the likeliest source of this sudden appearance of this denitrifying bacteria? (Remember, the nitrate drop happened within 24 hours of adding the established media, and took place over only a 4-day span, and my tank, in fact, all my tanks, continue to maintain <5 ppm nitrate levels.)



I'm happy to remove the media from my tank, and see if the nitrates start to rise again. But, what would that accomplish? It's not like you'll accept my results, if that happened. What if I then added it back and the nitrates dropped again? Probably not then either.



This is not a jab at you. To the contrary! You don't know me from a stranger on the street; why would you trust what I say? You genuinely are skeptical, and that's totally understandable. I just happen to know, from repeated usage, that it works. That's all.



Don, from GreatWave Engineering (a real life "pond guru", if there ever was one), has done tests on Biohome. The only one I uncovered on youtube is his test on whether Biohome affects pH:



I've enjoying this discussion. All the best to you.

D

It's not a canister, but I have pot scrubbies in a 4 stage trickle filter I built out of 5g buckets for our little basement turtle pond. Sponge, polyester fiber, nylon pot scrubbies, Matrix/DeNitrate:
(Like bio balls, the pot scrubbies work great in a drip application. In a canister filter, I think bio-sponge would be better)

Attached Thumbnails

 

Attached Images

    

I got a whole lot of tilapia poop haha
I have ehiem ceramic balls/bio media spread over the 4 containers of my canister. Sponge/foam clogs too quickly with my stock.
The outflow dumps into a grow bed with peppers and now some pea stocks. Bin is filled with expanded clay media balls. Water dumps from there back into tank.

I'm using fine and coarse sponges on the first two layers and then the scrubbies on the bottom. So scrubbies work best in a trickle filter and not so much for a canister? Sounds like I'll have to change them out later for some eheim substrat or something similar.

Awesome, that's good to know. Gradual changes are a-okay, especially when stable as you described. Did you notice any other properties to the peat? Does it soften water or reduce KH like a buffering substrate would? I also wonder if it would absorb nutrients like a soil/substrate with high CEC would.

Looks like the wife is gonna be annoyed because a small test must be done...that means another tank! lol

Thanks for answering my questions! I have the new canister on the way.

Sounds like good enough of an excuse to me. ; ) Yeah, not a sharper change like with a pH up/pH down-type product. You're basically making peat tea and the extraction takes a while and it's only going to do so much. I'd be curious to hear how your test goes. I'd expect that there probably will be more of a difference seen nearer a more neutral starting point. Much higher/lower and I think that there's likely going to be too much for it to force things much. No idea as far as nutrients.

It supposedly does have a softening effect though I've never measured what difference there may be. My water definitely is on the harder side so to whatever extent it helps, I'll take. It does stain the water some. Which I like in the tanks where I'm running it. Purigen will clear that up but it takes out the Purigen bag kind of quickly. At least as far as appearance goes anyway. Turns darker fairly fast. Charcoal I'd guess would work too but haven't tried it. Also there can be a little bit of an "earthy" odor at first when changed. Not over powering but you may get whiff here and there. More so in all-in-one tanks like my Spec V and with HOB filters vs canisters. That goes away fairly quickly. Or maybe I just get used to it. But since the wife with her super-nose has never said anything I think the former. Bagged peat obviously is much cheaper but it's kind of dirty, never know what's in it, need to pick out sticks and bigger pieces, etc. I like the pellets better myself. Neat and clean and easy and it's compressed so more/volume and lasts longer. I bought a bunch real cheap so that's what I use.

I stuffed peat granules, I tested in a bucket today, 7.6pH to 6pH in a day. o_o

How much peat, which product, and what volume of water?

Just sitting in a bag or running through a filter?

I've got a Hydor 600 with a similar setup. Sponge, the Hydor ceramic rings that came with the canister, Matrix, and Polyfil. I'm thinking of getting rid of the ceramic rings. Should I just get more Matrix too?

Bingo!
I agree.
Attack with easy to maintain strategies.

- I use all foam in my canisters and only open up the canister's body every quarter of a year.
This is only once the foam slabs in each chamber are established and running.
-this keeps the seals nice and unused, prolonging the notorious leak issues in time.

Prefilters:
Run a select porosity (hole size) pre-filter sponge on the intake of a canister, and all the heavy food/plant garbage gets stuck on the outer surface area of the prefilter (which gets removed and squished in water change water).
While maintaining the water changes, siphon off the prefilter while it is in the tank.
It is the easy way to keep the canister's prefilter sponge on longer.

The easy part:
Where is the tight porosity material your all thinking about?
I use a quiet hang-on filter with layered/stacked porosity sponge in it.
Hang-on filters like the Tidal series have almost no way to leak as they are just a bucket on the rim of the tank.
- Hang on filters are very quick to use, so I don't mind slapping out a hang-on filter each week if needed.

Bio (rock media):
I still have all the rock like bio-media from all my hang on filters, canisters, and accessories sitting in a junk drawer.
Some day I'll use it in a sump near the far cleanest end protected by chambers of foam.

I never understood this bio rock thing.
I can take my tight porosity filthy sponge and slap it out, and it gets open and clean again.

The small rock/stone bio media gets filthy in most applications, but I don't believe the pores get any cleaner over time building up with dead clumps of mulm.
If I can keep the rock/bio-media clean in a chamber of pristine water, then I'm ok with that.
Until then, it waits for a sump chamber in the future.

As a summary, I believe the squished out foam can be used more effectively than rock bio media in most applications.

***Give a try to lots of foam, you'll like the way it works for you when it gets seeded and ramped up in the denitrification process.
- stuff those chambers!

It's a bucket, I don't know how many gallons it holds, peat inside a nylon bag, there were two bags full, I'd say maybe 200g worth? Maybe more, dunno. It's the Fluval peat granules. I have heard that you shouldn't soak it before but whatever.

It's a trade-off, really. Higher surface area at the cost of eventual clogging. It is practically a given at some point, it's just a question of how long. But considering how much extra media we try to have, and the plants on top, that trade off may very well be completely optional for so many of our tanks. There's also reports of folks using the sintered glass media like Substrat Pro for a very long time (10 year range), but it's hard to tell if it is because they were good about avoiding clogging, their cleaning practices, or just not having a huge bioload because of plants/etc.

I do like having sponges around. My Eheim Pros use sponges instead of the Eheim Mech for the first tray of filtration after the coarse sponge. Two layers, medium, and medium-fine cut to "seal" the tray (and it happens to help slow flow a little, nice byproduct for my tanks). Then the other media goes in the trays after that one. But yeah, I wouldn't run the rock/ceramic media without some sort of mechanical filter in front of it to prolong the lifespan.

I'm using Biohome Ultimate as well, but not yet seeing the nitrate reduction. How long did it take for you?

NVM, I saw the answer in your later post.

I recently switched from a HOB to the Eheim Ecco Pro 2236 and I set it up "modified Pondguru style".

I left the original coarse blue pre-filter ring in the top.

I put 1" Poret 30ppi and 1" Poret 45ppi foam in the bottom tray. I didn't think it a good idea to cram 3" of foam into a 2" tray like Mr. Pondguru did in the YT video.

The other 3 trays are filled with approximately 1.8273kg of Biohome Ultimate.

I ran it with the HOB for a few weeks, then removed the HOB.

It's been running like this since early July. Ammonia and nitrite always at 0 (just like with the HOB), but I'm yet to see a noticeable reduction in nitrate. From what I understand it will take a few more months to build an adequate colony of the "nitrate-to-nitrogen" bacteria deep in the Biohome.

So I'm still hopeful , but like everything else with my aquarium I worry I'm doing it wrong.